


Watson's Woes 2018 Monthly Prompts

by gardnerhill



Series: 221b Ficlets by Gardnerhill [59]
Category: Basil of Baker Street - All Media Types, Elementary (TV), Mой нежно любимый детектив | My Dearly Beloved Detective (1986), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle, The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
Genre: BAMF Joan, BAMF John, BAMF Mrs. Hudson, Brave John Watson, Community: watsons_woes, Gen, M/M, Mice, Prompt Fic, Racism, Sherlock Holmes & Joan Watson (Elementary) Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-02-27 05:22:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 2,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13241310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: My entries for the 2018 monthly prompts on the LJ/DW comm Watson's Woes.





	1. And Worketh Diligently With Her Hands (ACD)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ”Houseproud” doesn’t begin to describe Martha Hudson.

It takes a bit more to maintain my lodgings than a bit of beeswax and black-lead.

There is great value in a reputation as a trustworthy woman who never tells lies – and in that vein, an art to _not_ telling the truth to a dangerous intruder without bearing false witness, and that I have done more than once (“Sir, I’m quite sure I have not seen a gentleman of Mr. Holmes’ description in this building today”).

The broom comes in handy when such unsavoury characters try to barge in to see my tenants, usually carrying a knife instead of a calling card – and young Bridget’s a dab-hand with the coal-scuttle to the back of the head for such ruffians as well.

When those grimy young hooligans stampede into the place, the one thing that scares them into a quiet walk up the stairs like civilized lads is a brandished cake of Pear’s and a threat to physically scrub them, clothes and all – and the currant scones waiting for them when they head back down help reinforce decent behaviour.

There is a way to clean the main room without disrupting Mr. Holmes’ piles of papers, and each one of the slaveys must master that technique before they are permitted to work in the room. (This has proved to be excellent training; several of them have moved on to other situations where their discretion and care with their employees’ belongings have earned them great praise and better wages.)

And if all else fails, I have a Stare that has caused three criminals to fall to their knees confessing all, right in the doorway. That last talent of mine never fails to irritate Mr. Holmes!  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the January 2018 Watson's Woes Monthly Prompt, “housekeeping.”


	2. Shy Fox, Sly Fox (Great Mouse Detective)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s more than one way to play Hare and Hounds.

Both Basil of Baker Street and Inspector Gervaise had set their sights on Henry Addington the forger and part-time cutthroat. Addington was a big, clever brute – most weasels are – and had managed to give the police and even Basil the slip more than once. 

When our all-night stakeout of one of his lairs left us with yet another empty room and a frustrated consulting detective, my rumbling stomach as the sun rose gave me the clue on how to handle the fellow.

That afternoon at the police station I told Basil, and as expected he didn’t like it one bit. 

Gervaise wasn’t much pleased either. “It’s a damned dangerous thing to do, Doctor,” he said. I did not miss the way he eyed me up and down, saying nothing out loud. 

“Or we could keep doing something that produces no results, and you can keep pulling his victims out of the Thames wherever he’s been, Inspector,” I said to the hamster.

“Dawson is quite right,” Basil said airily to Gervaise, clapping me on the shoulder; but I saw the bristled hairs all along his tail. I don’t think I’ve ever been more grateful for his support even in the midst of his fear. 

“Fine,” the inspector said grumpily. “I’ll get my lads on it.” 

Basil was still fretting as we prepared for bed that night. “Perhaps I ought to –“

“Out of the question.” I stroked one of my mate’s whiskers with one crooked finger. “ _You_ are a benefactor of all of mousedom, which means every subject worth his teeth will have seen you at least once in the newspaper. He’ll know you on sight. Besides, you’ll need to be elsewhere. I have several advantages over you in this case, and it is precisely because I am not you that this has a chance of working.”

He gave a very unhappy sigh, but curled in my embrace, his head on my chest. “I ought to know my Dawson by now.”

*** 

Henry Addington was a clever criminal, an able counterfeiter, and a ruthless killer. But he was also a weasel.

So when I stumbled along on the rooftops he frequented it was not at night but just at daybreak. And it was not a police officer nor the infamous crimefighter Basil of Baker Street but only a passer-by he would not recognize, just a bewildered doctor who’d lost his way returning from an early-morning call, seemingly. A bewildered doctor who happened to be a fat, clumsy-looking mouse who’d shown up just when a weasel was thinking more of breakfast than of anything clever. 

He was upon me in seconds. 

My terrified squeak of “Dear me!” did something primal to his eyes that I did not stay to see, but which I had hoped to conjure in him. I dropped my empty doctor bag and dashed into the nearest drain-pipe – wide enough to accommodate Addington as well as myself – and ran for my life. 

As Inspector Gervaise was kind enough not to say the day before, I am indeed fat. But I am not slow. And I proved it during my dash through the labyrinth of the connected drainpipes, my pursuer’s wordless scuttling only a hair’s-breadth behind me. A split-second of hesitation and I was his. 

As he’d eluded us, I eluded him. Across, down, left, right, right, left again, across, up a bit, left and down. 

Down. There, the exit onto the street. He was nearly upon me, and I let out a squeal as I raced forward, and out. 

The two police waiting at the exit for that signal immediately dashed in with a dragnet just as Henry Addington barreled out of the drainpipe, and the forger was caught. One of the constables blew his whistle to alert all the other police (stationed two each at every drain-pipe in this row), and they scampered over to aid in snaring the twisting, cursing criminal. I stood off, heaving for air and shaking as the rush left me. 

Then Basil was there, having left his own drainpipe opening. That look on his face told me how very badly he wanted to tear off both our clothes so we could mate like wild mice in the middle of the street, in front of police and shopkeepers and all. He has scolded me often enough for my penchant for running headlong into dangerous situations; but he cannot deny the effect my courage has on him either. Since we attempt at least the façade of civilisation, we retained our garments and merely observed the arrest of the counterfeiter in silence as I regained my breath; Basil confined himself to a comradely paw on my shoulder. There would be time to cast aside civility when we were home. 

“Well,” I said finally. “That’s him caught.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the February 2018 Watson's Woes Monthly Prompt, “elusive.”


	3. Representation Matters (Elementary)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Only fences should be whitewashed.

The brownstone door did not slam, but it was definitely _shut_ with more force than was required. Watson’s quick, forceful steps to the kitchen spoke of barely-controlled anger, as did the clunk of the teakettle and hiss of the stove. And it was just past one – far too early for the director to call it a day and let his consultant go home. 

Sherlock set down the chainsaw next to the can of green paint and headed downstairs. A cup of tea sounded like a good idea even if his partner didn’t want to use him as a sounding board.

“Well, so much for my hobby project,” Watson said, voice flat, when Sherlock entered the kitchen. 

“They fired you?” 

“I quit.” 

Sherlock made a noncommittal sound. He fixed his mug and waited for the water to finish heating up in silence beside his equally-silent partner. 

It was foolish to deduce without more data, but Sherlock’s mind raced through what he knew so far. Consultant on a Superlative film set had sounded fun, and a good match for Watson’s broad knowledge of the company’s entire comics line. Superlative had released two Midnight Ranger films and four films showcasing their other characters, with one in production. Watson had known someone who’d known someone who’d recommended her for the position, and she’d accepted it as a lark; she’d been as quietly giddy to start work today as he’d seen her in a while. 

When the tea was made and they were seated at the table, Joan took a long drag from her mug and set it down carefully before taking a breath. “Sherlock, what do you know about The Dragon Claw?” 

Sherlock thought of the research he’d done after a grinning Watson had announced her new temporary day-job; he rattled off his new-found information. “I know it’s the Superlative Comics title which is currently being filmed. The titular character is a college student named Wayne Wong who during a museum visit accidentally touches a Tang Dynasty helmet that coincidentally belonged to an ancestor of his, and from this helmet he receives superhuman strength and vision which he uses in his persona as The Dragon Claw, both in the company of other Superlative heroes and to make his own neighbourhood less attractive to criminals.”

Watson nodded, her lips in a thin line. “Today I met the actor they cast for Wayne Wong. John. Christopher. McGann.” She enunciated each part of the name.

He knew the name and the face. 

“That was exactly my reaction too,” Joan said flatly at Sherlock’s expression. “They cast a white guy who’d been in one cop show – a _blond_ white guy – as Wayne Wong. Oh excuse me, Wayne _Warren_.”

“Oh God,” said Sherlock.

Watson nodded. “I spoke to the director after the meeting. He told me, repeatedly, that he wasn’t a racist, nobody was a racist, that they’d just cast the best person for the role and had to rewrite accordingly.” Watson took a big gulp of her cooling tea. 

Sherlock thought of the one piece of television he’d seen McGann in. “If the role requires the hero merely to remove his shirt and mispronounce California cities, they did indeed cast the right actor.” 

The Chinese-American woman shook her head. “Sherlock, Oren and I would get so excited every time there was a new Dragon Claw out. For once there was a superhero that looked like us, that had our background, who went home to his family for New Year’s dumplings in February the way we did, and had an aunt who scolded him for not speaking better Mandarin after he’d stopped an alien invasion with the Justice Force!” This all tumbled out of her – anger and a very real grief. “Dragon Claw’s storyline is inextricably bound to his identity as an Asian American. And this movie is taking that all away to make a generic white superhero movie.”

Sherlock refilled their mugs. “You’ve done the right thing, Watson. I can’t begin to imagine your anger at this travesty. This won’t look good when the news gets out on social media.” 

“Way ahead of you.” Watson smiled. “I’ve already leaked the casting details to some of the Superlative fan sites, and they’ll be up in arms organizing boycotts before the day’s over. This movie is going to bomb big-time.” 

Sherlock matched her pitiless grin. “Well-deserved, I might add.” He hoisted his tea mug in a salute to his partner. “’For the family…’”

Watson lifted her own mug and finished Dragon Claw’s catch-phrase. “…’And for the world.’”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the March 2018 Watson's Woes Monthly Prompt, “ _whiteout_.”


	4. Lord of Misrule (Basil Rathbone films)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock Holmes doesn’t always look dignified.

I’ve seen the man dress as a music-hall performer, belting out ridiculous tunes through a huge false moustache that made me burst out laughing at the mere sight of it, to survey the drunken audience-members for his suspect. 

He has feigned an inability to remember names and faces, stumbling over his own feet and even breaking a glass bowl full of oranges while blaming me for it, all to the derision of a man who proved to be the murderer he had sought. 

When a small travelling circus was suspected of harbouring a jewel thief, he signed on as a joey clown. Children and adults alike roared at his pratfalls and the boards smacked across his head that spilled his juggling balls – made all the more ridiculous by the greasepainted frown on his face. And every bucket of soapy water dumped on him, every slip on a banana peel, led to his uncovering the four drovers who’d been robbing towns under the guise of tending the horses that pulled the circus wagons. 

Sherlock Holmes does not hesitate to make himself look foolish in the cause of justice. I am therefore careful to portray him with exceeding dignity in my stories, for as he plays the fool to bring the wicked low I marvel all over again at his true, noble bearing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the April 2018 Watson's Woes Monthly Prompt, “foolish.”


	5. May Drabble Prompt #1: Soldier’s Heart ("Bakerstown" AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The title refers to the Civil War-era term for PTSD.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in my [Welcome to Bakerstown](https://archiveofourown.org/series/285000) Western AU.

Doc will stab you if you even breathe a hint that he trades in any emotion besides anger. Texas is no place for the weak and weary. Besides, everyone’s got some evil dogging him; the war, mostly, but there are horrors in farming, seafaring, and factories too – enough to haunt every derelict in Bakerstown. 

Doc’s a true friend. So when I see him swim out of a nightmare, clench-hands trying to climb out of a pile of amputated soldier limbs only he sees, whimpering like a whipped pup, I pretend I’m asleep. I know how to be a friend, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the first of the five May 2018 Watson's Woes Monthly Prompts for the Month of Drabbles: Use one (or more) of the following words: _Breathe; Haunt; Stab; Swim; Evil; Weak; Clench; Emotion; Anger; Weary_. I used all of the words.


	6. May Drabble Prompt #2: Class (My Dearly Beloved Detective)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some clients rub you the wrong way from the very start.

“Solve this at once. _Tempus fugit_.” The woman swept out, her bustle following its own capricious whim. 

Shirley and I glared after Lady Trelawney Hope but said nothing; we were acutely aware of our plebeian station in the presence of a peer. 

“She came to us for help, and treats us like the scullery straight away,” I fumed. 

“It was rather impolitic of her to snub us at the very commencement of her case,” Holmes said. “But some women love to prove their superiority over other women.”

“And a mere layman treats a doctor that way!” 

I made Shirley laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the second of the five May 2018 Watson's Woes Monthly Prompts for the Month of Drabbles: 'Words of the Day': _Layman; Tempus Fugit; Capricious; Plebeian; Commencement._


	7. May Drabble Prompt #3: Fitting ("Cats and Dogs" AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not even a brilliant detective can ignore his own nature.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in my [Cats and Dogs Living Together](https://archiveofourown.org/series/24533) animal AU series

I smelled two different human fleshes, salt, blood, skin, human earwax, tar, cardboard – and over all that, my partner. 

Shock is the smartest cat I’ve met, but even he admits my nose is better than his. He was likely examining the thing now. 

I lolloped down the alley to tell Shock that something terrible had happened for there to be two different human’s ears in a box of salt but not the humans themselves. 

Shock was on it. Literally. He was nestled inside the cardboard box. “This feels good.” 

I dropped my head. I kept forgetting he was a cat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the third of the five May 2018 Watson's Woes Monthly Prompts for the Month of Drabbles: titles of some of the original Conan Doyle stories. Title chosen: Will be made apparent.


	8. May Drabble Prompt #4: Some Don’t Drink Wine ("Vermilion" Vampire AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some cases are a matter of following your nose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in my [Vermilion Problem](https://archiveofourown.org/series/283167) vampire AU.

“Vamberry the Wine Merchant?” I smiled at my friend. “That was before my Boswell had come along to glorify me. I was just beginning to add crime-solving to my nighttime pursuits.”

“The fellow was supplying a gang, you say?” 

“A specific type of gang, yes. I could just smell the contraband amid the legitimate stock in his cellar, each one racked amid a full case of his regular red. And when I broke open one bottle, I smelled it – the rich, intoxicating odour of fresh human blood.”

Watson made a face. “As mortal as me?”

“And paid well. Greed, Watson.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the fourth of the five May 2018 Watson's Woes Monthly Prompts for the Month of Drabbles: Cases which Dr Watson mentions in the Conan Doyle stories, but never elaborates on. This one also can be deduced from the drabble.


	9. May Drabble Prompt #5: Crisis (ACD)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That word had several meanings for Victorians.

“Watson. Stay where you are. I shall be in my room. I wish to be quite alone.” 

I could barely lift my head at those words from him. Exhaustion dragged me downward and sweat trickled in a river down my back; I wanted only to sink in and become unconscious. 

His lovely deft hand brushed back my sweat-soaked hair. “Dear one, do you think I will be able to sleep for half an hour, let alone take enough rest to refresh myself, whilst Ganymede made flesh lies in my arms? No; I must lose my spouse to gain my sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the fifth of the five May 2018 Watson's Woes Monthly Prompts for the Month of Drabbles: The single-word prompts _Alone, Unconscious, Lose, River, Exhaustion._


	10. May 1893 (Seven Percent Solution) (221b)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An absence is an absence.

All London mourns Sherlock Holmes. 

Cards and telegrams and flowers appear at Baker Street in droves – so much so that Mycroft was obliged to hire a secretary whose sole duty is to collect and curate the talismans and redistribute the flowers among neglected graves in city churchyards. 

I have my dear Mary, and my friends at the club, and my practise. And I have my secret – the one only a select few hold tight. For I know that Moriarty was an innocuous mathematics tutor and not the wicked Napoleon of Crime, that Sherlock Holmes' disappearance from London to the Continent was to save his own life from his spiraling cocaine addiction – and that both men are very much alive, Moriarty teaching at a university and Holmes… I know not where.

Holmes is free of cocaine, thanks to the combined efforts of Dr. Freud, his own indomitable willpower, and my subterfuge in luring him to Vienna. But the effort was hellish and exhaustive, and it had clearly taken a toll on my friend. Instead of returning with me to London, Holmes had taken a train heading toward Norway – but not before informing me that he was likely to be gone for several years. 

Two years so far. 

I know he is not truly dead, and yet his absence hurts nearly as badly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the September 2018 Watson's Woes Monthly Prompt, **absence**.


	11. Weehawken. Dawn. Guns. Drawn. (ACD)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is how a Victorian gentleman obtains satisfaction.

Colonel James Moriarty: 

Behold the weregild I exact for your insult of the best and wisest man I have ever known, whose memory I hold hallowed. 

Both men are now beyond the reach of man's law; their shared grave is unquiet enough without your attempt to dig them both up to exonerate the guilty and punish the innocent. 

You may be incensed, but I don't care a biscuit for your reaction. This manuscript is already in the hands of the _Strand_ editor and will shine a lantern upon the truth that was besmeared by your letters. 

Your obedient, 

J. Wat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the October 2018 Watson's Woes Monthly Prompt, **hallowed / weregild / unquiet / biscuit / lantern**.


End file.
